Black Hand (extortion)

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Black Hand (Italian: Mano Nera) was a type of Italian extortion racket. Originally developed in the eighteenth century, Black Hand extortion was exported to the United States in the later nineteenth century with Italian immigrants.

Black Hand was a method of extortion practiced by Italian immigrant gangsters of the Camorra and the Mafia, especially in the United States in Italian-American ghettos or neighborhoods. American newspapers in the first half of the twentieth century sometimes made reference to an organized "Black Hand Society", a criminal enterprise composed of Italians, mainly Neapolitan and Sicilian immigrants. However, many Sicilians disputed its existence and objected to the associated negative ethnic stereotype,^[1] but this was not the only viewpoint among Italian-Americans. Il Telegrafo: The Evening Telegraph, a newspaper for the Italian American community in New York City, printed an editorial on 13 March 1909 in response to Joseph Petrosino's assassination, which read in part, "The assassination of Petrosino is an evil day for the Italians of America, and none of us can any longer deny that there is a Black Hand Society in the United States."^[2]